US Watchdog's report faults VA chief over Europe trip expenses

Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, traveling on what he said was an "essential" trip to London and Copenhagen, improperly accepted Wimbledon tickets and brought along his wife at taxpayer expense, according to a scathing new inspector general's report. The report says Shulkin and some top staff members made a number of false and misleading statements both to justify the &dollar;122,334 trip and in defending it afterwards. His chief of staff, Vivieca Wright Simpson, doctored an email to convince an agency ethics lawyer to approve a &dollar;4,300 flight for Shulkin's wife, the report found.

WASHINGTON – An internal watchdog ' s investigation has found that Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin improperly accepted Wimbledon tennis tickets and likely wrongly used taxpayer money to cover his wife's airfare for an 11-day European trip . The report also questions Shulkin's decision to direct

Shulkin' s overseas trip may have involved too much leisure time at taxpayers' expense , according to the report by the agency' s internal watchdog . It found that VA ethics officials should not have approved the commercial airfare for Shulkin' s wife, Merle Bari

WASHINGTON — An internal watchdog's investigation has found that Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin improperly accepted Wimbledon tennis tickets and likely wrongly used taxpayer money to cover his wife's airfare for an 11-day European trip.

The report also questions Shulkin's decision to direct agency staff on official time to arrange his personal sightseeing activities during the July trip to England and Denmark.

The inspector general's audit is the latest in a controversy over misuse of government travel by top Trump administration officials.

Shulkin's lawyers say he did nothing improper. A department spokesman says Shulkin "travels far less than any recent VA secretary" and takes no private jets.

Priebus: Trump didn't complain to me about Kelly .
<p>The former White House chief of staff denied a report this week that claimed President Trump phoned him to complain about his replacement.</p>In an interview with Hugh Hewitt broadcast on Saturday, Priebus said the conversation, in which Trump reportedly complained to Priebus about Kelly's handling of domestic abuse allegations against a White House aide, never happened.

Similar from the Web

WASHINGTON – An internal watchdog ' s investigation has found that Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin improperly accepted Wimbledon tennis tickets and likely wrongly used taxpayer money to cover his wife's airfare for an 11-day European trip . The report also questions Shulkin's decision to direct

Shulkin' s overseas trip may have involved too much leisure time at taxpayers' expense , according to the report by the agency' s internal watchdog . It found that VA ethics officials should not have approved the commercial airfare for Shulkin' s wife, Merle Bari

WASHINGTON (AP) - An internal watchdog ' s investigation has found that Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin improperly accepted Wimbledon tennis tickets and likely wrongly used taxpayer money to cover his wife's airfare for an 11-day European trip . The report also questions Shulkin's decision to

WASHINGTON -- An internal watchdog ' s investigation has found that Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin improperly accepted Wimbledon tennis tickets and likely wrongly used taxpayer money to cover his wife's airfare for an 11-day European trip . The report also questions Shulkin's decision to direct

WASHINGTON (AP) - An internal watchdog ' s investigation has found that Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin improperly accepted Wimbledon tennis tickets and likely wrongly used taxpayer money to cover his wife's airfare for an 11-day European trip . The report also questions Shulkin's decision to

"Parents have the right to send their kids to school in the mornings and see them home alive at the end of the day," organizers of the walkout wrote on a Facebook page.Students are released from a lockdown outside of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. after […]

Va., Md. and others would keep driver’s licenses and in-state tuition despite plans to end programs affecting several hundred thousand immigrants.Immigrants from Central America, Haiti and Sudan will see their temporary protected status expire over the next 18 months, while the fate […]

&nbsp;She hid in a dark classroom closet, as the world outside was only beginning to learn about the murder of 17 students and teachers at her high school, and quietly told a classmate that she could no longer imagine doing what she'd planned to do on her 18th birthday: go to the […]

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High won't have to return to the three-story building that was the site was the deadliest school shooting in Florida history. The school district plans to tear down and then replace the freshman building on campus, Broward […]

Speaking to hundreds of people at a vigil in Florida Thursday night, father Fred Guttenberg described seeing his 14-year-old daughter for the last time Wednesday morning, just hours before she was killed in one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern U.S. history. Speaking to the crowd […]

"There's no disrespect or insensitivity intended by this long-planned gun show," a statement from organizers said. Related: Why so many people love the AR-15The deadly shooting in Parkland has at least one gun vendor outraged at the systemic flaws that allowed Cruz to get an […]

He died shielding students from gunfire. He captured the gunman. She hid students in a closet. Load Error Tales of heroism have emerged as survivors recall the moments after a gunman opened fire Wednesday at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Here are […]